Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
Browse the NASA APOD archive without needing the exact date first. Filter by media type and keep moving deeper into older images and videos.
Sunset, Moonset, Taj Mahal
On October 25th, Sun and New Moon set together as seen from Agra, India. Their close conjunction near the western horizon, a partial solar eclipse, was captured in this elevated…
Cocoon Nebula Wide Field
When does a nebula look like a comet? In this crowded starfield , covering over two degrees within the high flying constellation of the Swan ( Cygnus ), the eye is drawn to the…
Jupiter Rotates as Moons Orbit
Jupiter and its moons move like our Sun and its planets. Similarly, Jupiter spins while its moons circle around. Jupiter’s rotation can be observed by tracking circulating dark…
Clouds Around Galaxy Andromeda
What are those red clouds surrounding the Andromeda galaxy? This galaxy, M31 , is often imaged by planet Earth-based astronomers. As the nearest large spiral galaxy, it is a…
Milky Way and Zodiacal Light over Australian Pinnacles
What strange world is this? E a r t h . In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles , unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia . Made of…
NGC 1499: The California Nebula
Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun…
Andromeda in Southern Skies
Looking north from southern New Zealand , the Andromeda Galaxy never gets more than about five degrees above the horizon. As spring comes to the southern hemisphere, in late…
Pillars of Creation
A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured these star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula, dubbed the Pillars of…
A Galaxy Beyond Stars, Gas, Dust
Do we dare believe our eyes? When we look at images of space, we often wonder whether they are "real", and just as often the best answer varies. In this case, the image was…
Milky Way Auroral Flower
Could the stem of our Milky Way bloom into an auroral flower? No, not really, even though it may appear that way in today's featured all-sky image . On the left, the central plane…
X-Ray Rings Around a Gamma Ray Burst
Why would x-ray rings appear around a gamma-ray burst? The surprising answer has little to do with the explosion itself but rather with light reflected off areas of dust -laden…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar . And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral . And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole . This all…
GRB 221009A
Gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A likely signals the birth of a new black hole, formed at the core of a collapsing star long ago in the distant universe. The extremely powerful blast is…
The Falcon and the Hunter's Moon
The Full Moon of October 9th was the second Full Moon after the northern hemisphere autumnal equinox, traditionally called the Hunter's Moon. According to lore, the name is a…
Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb
What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research . Where they were created is well known: in a…
Ou4: The Giant Squid Nebula
A mysterious squid-like cosmic cloud, this nebula is very faint, but also very large in planet Earth's sky. In the image , composed with 30 hours of narrowband image data, it…
Stars, Dust, Pillars, and Jets in the Pelican Nebula
What dark structures arise within the Pelican Nebula? On the whole, the nebula appears like a bird ( a pelican ) and is seen toward the constellation of a different bird: Cygnus ,…
A Double Lunar Analemma over Turkey
An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. But the trick to imaging an analemma of the Moon is to…
Auroras over Northern Canada
Gusting solar winds and blasts of charged particles from the Sun resulted in several rewarding nights of auroras back in 2014 December, near the peak of the last 11-year solar…
Two Comets in Southern Skies
Heading for its closest approach to the Sun or perihelion on December 20, comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) remains a sight for telescopic observers as it sweeps through planet Earth's…
In Ganymede's Shadow
At opposition , opposite the Sun in Earth's sky, late last month Jupiter is also approaching perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in its elliptical orbit, early next year.…
NGC 4631: The Whale Galaxy
NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy. Seen edge-on , it lies only 25 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici . The galaxy's…
Expanding Plume from DART's Impact
What happens if you crash a spaceship into an asteroid? In the case of NASA's DART spaceship and the small asteroid Dimorphos, as happened last week, you get quite a plume. The…
Star-Forming Eagle Nebula without Stars
The whole thing looks like an eagle . A closer look at the Eagle Nebula 's center, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of…
Viewing discoveries from 27 October 2022 through 4 October 2022.